


(Relatively) Alive

by Aoida_blue



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Cyborg!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-13
Updated: 2012-05-13
Packaged: 2017-11-05 06:59:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/403660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aoida_blue/pseuds/Aoida_blue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason blinks, breathes, for all intents and purposes, he lives. But there’s nothing… nothing but the crème-plastered walls of his life – his old life- closing in on him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(Relatively) Alive

**Author's Note:**

> Set just post Jason’s death, where he doesn’t entirely die and Bruce doesn’t entirely let him go. 
> 
> AKA, I play with AUs again.

He’s alive.

 

Of course he is.

 

It doesn’t feel like it.

 

Jason blinks, breathes, for all intents and purposes, he  _lives_. But there’s nothing… nothing but the crème-plastered walls of his life – his old life- closing in on him. Voices talk, whisper, bounce around him.

 

He’s alive.

 

But he can’t be.

 

He remembers pain so bad he was  _dying_. He remembers blood –  _his_  blood _ohgodhisblood_ \- splattered like abstract art across cold cement, remembers lying useless watching a digital clock count down. The flames, fire, burning, he doesn’t remember them until he closes his eyes, until he lays frozen deep in dreams too real to be anything but.

 

He died. But he’s alive.

 

Jason knows this in the recess of his mind, the sluggish whirl of thought.

 

He’s alive.

 

But.

 

Sometimes…

 

Sometimes he thinks he’s not.

 

After all Bruce talks to him like his not.

 

Talks to him and holds his hand like something fragile, something breakable,  _something broken_. Talks in a low gravelly voice, a voice that would be Batman, but the rhythm is all wrong.

 

So maybe he isn’t alive. Maybe this is a dream.

 

But Jason still breathes and wonders why.

 

Why he exists. How. How he still-

 

He exists.

 

The world is a funny thing, a strange thing Jason can watch, can see with his eyes open and blinking. A strange thing he can’t touch. Can’t interact with. Can only watch.

 

So he watches. He watches as coats with too many colours and too much spandex to be doctors, move around him. They whirl and dance along his open eyes, too fast to follow.

 

 _Adoption rate is slow_. They say voices like differing notes, jarring on a piano,  _But steady._   _He’s_ _improving_.

 

Bruce would stand amongst the colours, a dark shadow in the corner of Jason’s world, standing there until they left, until Alfred came in with soft feet and stern voice.

 

 _Dead_ , Jason toyed with the word, a wild dream that suddenly makes everything better, easier than this fake screen of a world. He’s dead.

 

But he’s not.

 

Dick appears. Eventually. Eyes on Jason like pain, apologies on his lips, and condemnation at the dark shadow that returns and returns. He’s a whirlwind of things, emotions, colours, touches on Jason’s forehead like  _please come back_ , a rub on his arm like  _I’m here, I’m here and I’m sorry_ , a grasp on his elbow like  _What has he **done**  to you_.

 

He’s a whirlwind, in and out and quick enough that sometimes when Jason blinks he was never there at all.

 

 _Increasing neural activity_. The coloured coats say again,  _Adjustment period should last another week._

 

A boy appears. Amongst everything, the coats, the shadow, and whirling, he is a slight blimp. But he’s strange,  _different_ , eyes too serious, too examining, but hand hesitant on Jason’s as if he’s not sure it should be there. There is yelling, somewhere, a distant echo of words far from the ones that usually circle Jason’s head and the boy’s eyes tighten.

 

 _I’m not you_. He says like it’s a bad thing, like that could ever be a bad thing,  _but_   _he needs someone._

 

Jason’s alive and dead and nothing really matters.

 

He starts to feel. A slow twitch of feeling running up his arm and when Bruce holds his hand, when the boy touches it, when Dick rubs, Jason think he can feel them. The pressure of the pillow behind his head, the bed beneath his heavy body, solidifies. He’s no longer floating, instead he’s grounding, slowly. He itches. A crawling sensation twitches under his skin.

 

Now, sometimes, Jason’s vision flashes blue, lines through his eyes like the static on old television screens and then he sees  _clearer_.

 

Alfred visits. Jason never noticed before, eyes on the ceiling, but as his eyes roam aimlessly around the room, wall to wall to window, he sometimes sees him. He never says anything, not  _I’m sorry_ and never  _I’m not you_ , but he isn’t a lingering shadow. He’s real. Solid. He works, hands moving with a needle and threat, and sometimes, sometimes, when Jason looks at him, he looks back.

 

 _Accepted._  The coats say flooding in like the tide, and the room is buzzing, the boy, Alfred, Bruce and Dick all standing around him,  _should we proceed?_

 

There are voices, noises and Jason rides through it all, not really there, not really anywhere else. Alive and dead and existing but not really.

 

 _Yes_ , Bruce says.

 

Then Jason watches as the coats swarm, swarm wider, and the blue tinge to his vision reappears, static fuzzier. Like an old television screen the static is thick and Jason can see nothing else. Then it disappears and all Jason can see is black.

 

Black.

 

Nothing.

 

Just-

 

Black nothingness that stretches on forever and ever and into externity and-

 

Suddenly Jason’s flying, soaring, falling down. Tumbling through the empty space, hands stretched above him. He would scream if he had a mouth, but he doesn’t, he has nothing and is falling, falling, falling…

 

 _Tick_.

 

 _Tick_.

 

Bombs and clowns twisting around him, crowbar rising and falling, his mouth is open and he’s screaming and there is-

 

Pain.

 

Blood.

 

 _Agony_.

 

Jason fits forward, chest convulsing, eyes wide and limbs on fire. Every inch was an inferno under his skin and there is shouting, yelling around him, shock and amazement but everything  _burns_.

 

 _Move_. His instincts scream.  _Move, run, get away_.

 

There is ground under his feet, hands coming towards him and Jason ducks, rolls, punches, kicks, gets grabbed in return, faces swarming high around him and Jason goes for the eyes. His fingers sink into slots and hands drop away from him, but there are more and one large set of arms is before him-

 

Jason is nothing but instinct and motion, punches, kicks, ducks and rolls. He is instinct and motion and when he sees an opening, he leaps. Glass shatters around him and he is plummeting to a ground so far away.

 

He’s falling again, falling again but the world is bright, bright so  _bright_. Ground beneath him, growing large like a clown’s smile, and Jason’s mouth opens wider and he wants to scream, but he’s been screaming the entire time, and he’s getting closer and-

 

The ground hurts. It hurts like breaking bones and crowbars, pain rushing fast over him. His vision flickers, filling with static and Jason can hear- can hear-

 

_Which hurts more?_

 

The voice is chased away as his eyes flash blue, blue and cold and Jason can feel the pain receding, being forced back and he can feel his body straighten, rise from the ground.

 

Information rushes at him and Jason knows-

 

**_Rudimentary healing complete. Full recovery estimated 1.78 minutes._ **

 

But Jason doesn’t have the time, he doesn’t because-

 

**_Three bodies are descending from the window, estimated landing .25 seconds._ **

 

Jason moves.

 

He runs, runs hard, lungs burning, sides on fire, and he runs faster.

 

**Pursuers: 2.45 seconds behind.**

**Pursuers: 1 second behind.**

 

Jason ran harder. Pain erupting fresh over his body, and he hurts everywhere, everywhere but he can’t stop, he can’t. A fence, high ( **3.267 metres** ) is ahead and that’s outside. He’s nearly-

 

 **Warning**.

 

A voice, cool and emotionless ran in his head, vision flaring in static bursts.

 

 **Warning**.

 

He runs harder, feeling his very sides spilt, feeling hot and cold and burning, burning.

 

He’s one step from the fence, from freedom, when the line appears across his vision. Thick text obscuring the sudden white wash of the world..

 

 ** _Overload_**. It reads and Jason blinks once and feels his body collapse beneath him.

 

He falls into the darkness.

 

This time it’s quiet. 


End file.
